A Second Chance
by Writen
Summary: The Omnic Crisis may be over, but Omnic terrorist activity is still popping up all around the globe. Pharah and her team are constantly running missions to quell these uprisings, much to Ziegler's chagrin. But everything changes during a fateful mission in New Ontario. (Story done on request by anon.) (3-shot)
1. Chapter 1

Fareeha stared down at her old team nostalgically.

The photo was dull and worn from being carried around in her armor for so many years.

She could see so many great and experienced warriors in it, herself and her mother

included.

It was a photo from the day she graduated from the Egyptian Military academy. Fareeha was so happy then, she could actually see herself, as well as her comrades and her sergeant, smiling cheerfully. They smiled like nothing in the world could stop them, like they could take on the whole Omnic crisis themselves, like they were invincible.

But they weren't.

Fareeha frowned bitterly and tucked the picture back under her armor. She grabbed her Helix built standard issue rocket launcher as she prepared to land. In front of her was her new team. Most of them had seen combat before. Mahmud, Tariq, and Saleh of them

had personally fought alongside her when they quelled the Anubis uprising.

There was also a 5th team member assigned to them, a rookie. What was her name? Nubia? Navia? Nia? Whatever.

Reports said that she had graduated in the top 2% of the academy. Still, Fareeha would have to reserve judgement until she could witness her newest comrades' strength in combat for herself.

The seasoned Egyptian soldier went over the mission report in her head again. A large force of rogue omnics had taken control of a large sector of New Ontario and started making demands. Among these demands was the call for the destruction of the Helix International's Headquarters, which was near the border of Omnic controlled territory.

Because of this recent insurrection, Fareeha and her squad were being sent in to quash

it and any trace of it.

The bay doors to the transport jet opened, revealing Fareeha's squad standing at the ready. Waiting for them were two people. The one standing front and center looked to be a battle-weary commander, Fareeha didn't recognize him. But she sure did recognize the other person.

Angela Ziegler, Chief Health Officer, medical prodigy...and Fareeha's lover.

But right now, they were going to have to deal with their newest mission.

Wasting no time, the commander began. "Here's the situation. A large group of unidentified terrorists Omnics have taken over the political centers of downtown New

Ontario. At 1730 hours the Canadian military set up a perimeter around the city."

"And our mission?"

"Helix International is giving you orders to recover a valuable data unit locked up inside its business center. You have clearance to damage other Helix property if it is required, as well as clearance to use deadly force against these Omnics, though we don't know how many there are or what kind of units or experience in battle they possess."

"Civilians?" Fareeha questioned.

"None in immediate danger as far as we can see on bio-sensors. They're all either evacuated or in hiding underground." The commander reported.

"Good. That will make things a lot less complicated."

In response, Fareeha's squad mounted up their weapons and prepared for the upcoming battle. Fareeha herself began to walk towards the aforementioned perimeter so her team could begin the recovery op.

However, before she could even take a step, she was stopped by the grasp of a small and gentle hand on her shoulder. Even through her thick titanium-polyite armor, Fareeha could feel its warmth. She already knew who it was even before she began to turn around.

"You know according to research it's extremely unhealthy to run more than four missions like this in one week." Angela warned.

"Officially ma'am, I'm going to have to apologize to inform you that I am under orders and am unable to halt my mission without proper orders from Helix International."

"And unofficially, hmmm Fareeha?"

"Unofficially I'm...really sorry?"

A soft-hearted chuckle escaped from between Ziegler's lips.

"You know, for all your experience in the field of battle, you're still really cute when you're confused."

The Helix mercenary stood unwavering. Donning her helmet and loading her rocket launcher.

"You and I both know I still have to go out into that field. King's row was the first uprising, and unfortunately Anubis was a stark reminder that it wasn't the last." Fareeha said.

"Is there any way at all to convince you from going?"

"Not unless you're willing to file a request with Helix International and then wait 3 to 4 business days." The war-weary pilot wisecracked.

Angela sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she responded. "Please just...don't die out there. Your Raptora armor can only take so much, and I won't always be there with Caduceus if you fall, you know." She warned desperately.

Fareeha simply turned to gaze into no man's land. She smiled. "Yes, you will." She countered earnestly.

Not wasting another second, she linked up with her team before crossing the perimeter into the field of battle. Angela could do nothing but look on, hoping and worrying for her lover's wellbeing all the while.

"I pray I won't have to."

The crossing into the firezone was silent and dreary. The smoke and dust of damaged concrete buildings flooded their nostrils and made it so that they couldn't see more than a few feet with their eyes. Luckily, Fareeha and her team were equipped with the Raptora Mk IV armor, and their Helmet's HUD meant that they could spot any contact from a mile away, friend or foe.

The walk into the bleak unknown was unsettling for the rookie, to say the least. She kept checking her corners and running scans like she was told in training over and over.

"Why haven't we run into forward units, yet? This doesn't feel right." The rookie complained.

"They're likely holed up near the center of their territory. If we keep low and stay quiet, we should be able to sneak up on them. Make sure not to use your rocket pack unless the element of surprise is no longer with us." The older, more experienced veteran advised.

"Yeah...right, sorry."

Fareeha looked over the new recruit. She looked nervous, paranoid. This must be her first time in a real combat mission. Getting shot no longer meant a slap on the wrist and orders for extra laps. Out here, getting shot meant getting shot.

"Hey, this your first real mission, rookie?"

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

"You're nervous. It's your first crossing into no man's land. Everyone was nervous in their first one, too. Even me. Just trust your team, do your job, and we'll all come out of this alri-

 _ **"CONTACT!"**_

The egyptian captain barely had time to whip her head around before the rounds started flying all around her. Tariq and Muhmad had already jumped behind a dumpster, while Saleh tackled the rookie behind a broken down hesco. No longer was she Fareeha, tough-but-caring captain. She was now Pharah, the bold and heavy hitting commander of Helix's best assault squad.

"Everyone! Get airborne and on top of those buildings! NOW!"

Her squad was quick to respond. True to their training, half of them dashed for the flattops while the other half fired on the omnics currently trying to jump them. Once half the squad got to a better position, it was their turn to cover the other half.

Now it was just Pharah and the rookie still trapped on the ground.

"Go to the left! I'll go to the right! We'll split their firepower!" Pharah screamed over the cracks and explosions of the raging battle.

"Yes, Captain!"

The two soldiers flew as fast as their packs allowed. The rookie reached the safety of the gravel roof before Pharah, she turned to cover her captain. However, the newbie's look of relief snapped into one of horror. Pharah turned to look back.

Without warning, a bastion turret began unloading lead into her back from a nearby shop window. She had no time to react. She had no chance.

Armor piercing rounds sliced through her armor and her skin. Her jetpack burst into flames. The chemical inferno seared her skin and sucked her breath out. She tried to scream in agony but all that came out was a meek groan. Without the aid of her pack, she fell to the Earth.

She saw her team look at her in horror, shock, and anger.

She saw her mother.

She saw Angela.

And then she saw nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

It felt...empty.

Her eye lids opened slowly, like rusty silo doors. For a moment, everything was blurry, until Fareeha sat up and rubbed her eyes. She reached for her rocket launcher, only to grasp thin air. Her eyes went wide as she quickly snapped around to find that not only her weapon, but her armor was gone as well.

Armed with nothing but her fists and clothed in nothing but her cadet uniform, Pharah let her combat training take over as she assessed her new surroundings.

Wait...cadet uniform?

What was she doing in her cadet uniform?

Didn't matter. She could figure that out later, right now she needed to get her hands on a half-decent weapon and then link up with any friendly forces in the area.

As the Egyptian Skyknight traversed through the clabbered fog that surrounded her, she spotted the faintest hint of an outline of a person. Falling back on her training, she stuck to the shadows and came up on the person from behind.

But just as she was about to interrogate them, they disappeared into thin air. Stunned, she looked around, expecting this to be some sort of ambush. But nothing happened.

"Well well well... you were certainly much shorter the last time I saw you."

Pharah spun around, her fists raised, ready to fight her way through whatever may come her way.

"Who's there!?" She barked into the mist.

"Tch. Now now. Is that any way to greet your former squadron commander?"

As the figure stepped out of the shadows and into the light, the shroud of mystery fell away. Pharah was beyond confused. She had too many questions.

"Or should I say _ex-_ squadron commander?"

It was her old commander. The same commander that had been her sergeant in charge from the day she had graduated from the Military Academy.

"Colonel Abasi?! But...I was there during the omnic crisis. I was right beside you. How did you-"

"Survive? I didn't. That eradicator unit in Giza tore me to ribbons, you saw that as well as I." Abasi commented non-chalantly.

"Then does that mean that I'm...

Fareeha's eyes went as wide as dinner plates as realization hit her like a sledgehammer. Her fists turned back to hands as they dropped to her sides. Her mouth hung open as her mind raced at a thousand miles a minute.

"But if you didn't survive, and I'm here...does that mean that I'm?" Fareeha asked with paralytic confusion lining her words.

"Well...yes and no. You see, like me, you got your ass handed to you." Abasi laughed.

Fareeha scowled in response, obviously unamused.

"However, unlike me, you still have the talent of one very intelligent medical officer to bring you back. You've only just went down and your 'soul' hasn't faded away quite yet. You still have time."

Abasi opened some sort of vision to where Angela was at that very moment, blissfully unaware that her loved one was mere minutes from death.

"Now, come. We have quite a few things to discuss." The dead colonel beckoned.

Pharah could only look on longingly at the vsion into the living world.

 **At the same time, Candian Military Perimeter**

Angela was hoping more than ever that her girlfriend was in good health. Just minutes earlier she had heard the roar of a vicious firefight from the heart of the occupied city before it had all suddenly stopped.

She was no expert in combat, but to her, that sounded like a bad sign.

Ziegler decided it was time to go back to work. A few of the citizens of New Ontario had been injured during the evacuation. On the bright side, there were no fatalities, and most of the wounds were nothing more than cuts, scrapes, and grazes.

She deftly strolled over to the makeshift hospital field tent that had been set up mere hours prior. Pulling back the thick canvas tent flap, she witnessed a large group of people cluttered around it with varying levels of injury.

"Alright everyone. Let's form a calm and orderly line so that-"

"Ms. Ziegler! I need you out here ASAP!"

As Ziegler was interrupted mid-sentence, she formed a face to her patients that basically said "Well, sorry."

"One moment, please" She said to her patients.

Exiting the field hospital as soon as she arrived, she spotted two soldiers waiting for her outside, weapons in hand as they stood at attention.

Soldiers...in Pharah's squad. She recognized them.

"What's going on?" She questioned.

"Grab your healing staff and gear up. We took a casualty and we need you in the field."

"Understood!"

Chief Medical Officer Ziegler was used to this kind of treatment. Being told to gear up at the drop of hat, having no idea who had been injured or why. In the field of battle, time was your greatest ally, but working as a medic, time was your greatest enemy.

Within under two minutes she had rushed to her lab, grabbed her Cadeceus staff, self-defense blaster, and Valkyrie suit, and was headed back to the soldiers. It was as if she had just done it through sheer muscle memory and experience.

But something about this little rescue mission felt different. Worryingly different. The omnics were using jammers, so of course two soldiers would have to come back to the perimeter physically to give mission reports, but what was going on exactly?

She would have to find out.

The three of them headed into the combat zone at full sprint, luckily for them this part of the city had been cleared of omnic forces for the most part earlier in the day, so they could run through it without much fear of counterattack.

But an omnic ambush wasn't what Angela had plaguing her mind at the moment.

"Who was it?" Ziegler asked.

That question halted the soldiers in their tracks. They looked at each other slowly.

"I'm so sorry! I-I was talking to her about how nervous I was and then w-we came under attack and I w-wasn't paying attention and I-"

The other soldier put his hand on her shoulder to calm her. The first soldier fell silent shortly afterwards. Now Angela remembered her. This was the new recruit to Pharah's squad if her memory served her well. But what was she going on about? Unless...oh no.

NO.

Her warm caring smile faded in an instant. Her heart sank to the bottom of her stomach. Her worst fears came to fruition.

"Squad leader Pharah was hit pretty bad, but we need to keep moving if we're going to make it in time." The other soldier reported. Not waiting for the other two, he continued on towards the rest of the squad.

The other two quickly followed suit. Soon they could see the rest of the squad forming a tigh-knit circle around a body. Ziegler let go of her sense of caution as she sprinted towards the unmoving person. She ran fast.

Faster than she had ever run before.

Caduceus appeared in her right hand through reflex. She immediately got to work doing what she did best. She unleased billions of nanobots into Pharah's body to accelerate her recovery time by 400,000%

But it wasn't working. The nanobots were performing their function to accelerate recovery but without any life in the body, the nanobots weren't good for anything.

That left Ziegler with only one option.

Without any other options for recovery, Mercy desperately armed the master switch on Caduceus to activate the resurrection function. Angela took another glance at her wounds. Lacerations and holes dotted her chest. A chemical burn had seared away half her face, and her leg was missing.

The last time she had used a Caduceus resurrection on someone with injuries of this scale was back when the Swiss Headquarters fell. Gabriel was lying with half his body missing in a pile of rubble, but when he had awoken he had turned into...What he is now.

Oh god, what if Fareeha...

No. She refused to let that happen again.

"Clear!" She shouted as she charged Caduceus.

She prayed that it was enough.

And activated the resurrection charge.


	3. Chapter 3

"You're still very much confused. Most are when they arrive here." Abasi acknowledged.

Pharah took a seat on the ground. Without anywhere to go or anything to do except talk, it was all she could really do.

"You seem very calm and collected, all things considered." Pharah mentioned.

"Yeah, well... I've been here a while. You get used to it."

A silence filled the air, like a thick, uncomfortable smoke. A wall of grey mist surrounded them in all directions that seemed like it would never cease. The ground was flat, almost glassy.

"Heh. And to think we thought we were all invincible." The colonel piped up.

"Who?" Pharah inquired.

"You, me, the rest of our squadron from the Academy. We were all supposed to make it out of that mess alive and then go home to our families. That was the plan. That was the promise we made to each other." Abasi recited from the day they had graduated.

"Yes, it was, but what about it?"

"Hanbal, Moss, Myself. We fell in battle during the omnic crisis. Nuru was struck down during a Talon ambush. Your mother got taken out by some lucky two-bit talon sniper. God knows what happened to Morrison. And then there's you."

"What about me? What are you going on about?" Pharah asked impatiently.

"I'm saying you still have a chance to go back. To walk away from all of this. Unlike us, you still have a home to go back to." Abasi pleaded.

"I can't do that. I took an oath to save lives, even if it meant sacrificing my own. We all did." Pharah reminded.

"And we all _have_ , Fareeha. Go home. That might be the hardest pill for you to swallow, but you need to go home. You can't just throw your life away running missions all the time."

"But the people I swore to protect..."

"I don't think it would kill them if you took a break from time to time." Abasi reasoned.

Abasi sighed and closed her eyes, breathing in.

"You know, you have something that most people would give up everything for, Fareeha."

"What?"

"A chance to begin again. I want you to take that chance."

The ghosts of Pharah's old squadron mates began to peer through the mist, standing side by side to Colonel Abasi.

" _We_ want you to take that chance."

Pharah could only stand in stunned silence. Here they were, her old squadron. People she had almost grown up with, fought alongside, and watched die right in front of her. This was what was once almost her family.

"I...I understand." The Skyknight promised, and as she did, her armor materialized around her, battered and broken. Her rocket launcher did the same, devoid of any ammunition in its loading chamber.

"I won't let you down, but it is my duty to protect the innocent." She said, fierce determination filled her words.

"You can't save them all, you know that. We're proof." Abasi pointed out.

"I know..." Pharah said as she donned her Raptora's eagle helmet once more.

"...But I have to try."

Without warning, everything went white. It was as if the brightest of suns was shining directly into her face. The wall of mist cleared as if swatted away like a common fly.

"See you around, Fareeha."

In an instant, Abasi and the rest of Pharah's old squad disappeared. Pharah could breathe again, she could see again.

And suddenly, the world wasn't so cold anymore.

Pharah awoke, dazed, confused, and in a hospital gown. She looked up to see she was in a hospital room. To her left was the love of her life sleeping at her side, and to her right was a television that displayed the news.

"And in further news, the omnic terrorist organization that was occupying New Ontario, known as the PLLC, has officially surrender to the Canadian Armed Forces as of this morning. When the omnics programming was checked, it was discovered that they had been hacked. Investigators have not released any further info." The newscaster reported before switching to weather reports.

She could only sigh in relief tiredly as she looked back over to Angela, who was beginning to stir from her slumber. She yawned and stretched her arms as she awoke. It was only then she spotted Fareeha staring at her.

"Oh, thank goodness you're alright." Ziegler said.

"I'm doing quite well, enjoying the view and all."

"But the window is that way." Angela pointed out.

"I know." Fareeha said flirtatiously.

Angela smiled. "Come here, you." She whispered as she kissed Fareeha.

As they seperated, Angela's eyes lit up.

"Oh! That reminds me. We recovered this from your armor." She said as she pulled out a dog-eared photo from her lab coat's breast pocket. She curtly handed it over to her recovering lover.

"Thank you..." Fareeha said as she took it.

"Also, you were mumbling quite a lot while you were unconscious. You sounded almost like you were having a conversation with somebody."

"I was."

"Oh? With who?"

Pharah stared down at the photo once again. Her eyes shifting from Colonel Abasi, then Seargeant Abasi. Her squad mates were all there, too. All of the ones she had seen on the other side.

"An old friend. They gave me A Second Chance." She said softly.

 **The End**


End file.
